Coach's stitchwork got Allen High School field hockey team to playoffs

Bradley A. HuebnerSpecial to The Morning Call

How did Allen High field hockey coach keep her Canaries together?

The late summer ruling that kept boys from playing field hockey, most painfully on teams with playoff aspirations, hit Allen as hard as any.

The Canaries' success in developing male goalkeepers and forwards over the years is common knowledge. Weeks before the regular season began, coach Karen Nilson had to shelve four boys when the ruling came down eliminating males from competitive varsity play.

Most of this season, Allen played with 12 girls on the roster. Seven seniors, five underclassmen.

In a 9-1 loss to Hazleton, Nilson started the requisite 11 girls to make the game official but soon lost two of those players who had softball commitments.

"Three of the girls I stole from softball," Nilson said, "so on weekends they had softball games, too. We worked around their hockey schedule so they could attend showcases for softball. I can't stop them from doing that. They were softball players first. We had to work out a few things."

Seniors Abby Maressa and Tamera King and junior Morgan Fritchman helped keep the program afloat by boosting the numbers and athleticism.

Holdovers like senior captain Cara Morrell, a defender, guided the back row aptly enough to protect first-time goalkeeper Nitselly Belliard, a sophomore. The other standout, senior midfield Gabby Lewis, scored 17 goals and assisted on three more to earn the attention of Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

"In the summer I had a lot of kids, but because of the economy and the travel situation they couldn't continue," Nilson said. "A lot of them are south-side kids and a lot of them had to have jobs because of the economy."

Nilson understood their need to meet primary needs first.

Despite the long odds, the inability to scrimmage, the inability to practice seven vs. seven overtime situations, and the presence of novice players, Nilson held it together. She picked up players at their houses and also drove them home from practices.

The Canaries persevered and beat teams like Bethlehem Catholic, Freedom, Dieruff, East Stroudsburg North and even Liberty, a win that vaulted Allen ahead of the Hurricanes into the eighth and final Eastern Pennsylvania Conference playoffs, one of the crowning achievements in Nilson's career, which also sustained a 16th straight District 11 playoff berth. A 9-9 regular season impressed Valley fans.

Nilson admitted that the achievement made her "a little surprised myself."

The what-ifs don't matter at season's end. What if the boys had played? What if even half of the girls from the disbanded Central Catholic team, the ones who played for Salisbury, had played for Allen?

The new what-ifs might shift perception of Allen field hockey permanently, or at least for the near future. What if more players don't sign up next year? What if the four anticipated incumbents don't have many new teammates? What if Allen has to fold its field hockey program?

Nilson cited a rule that did not allow a pair of 4A schools to merge, so joining forces with intra-Allentown School District high school Dieruff is not an option.

"They've been talking about that for years," Nilson said.

Before, it was to save the Dieruff program. The Huskies have boosted their numbers the past few seasons, but boys had been part of that renaissance. The growth stimulated an ancillary boost in the number of female players.

An easy answer for Nilson is to find students in the hallways and fit them for a shirt and a skirt. But Nilson said you can't teach someone the game of hockey in a few weeks and expect them to be competitive.

"This could be the end of Allen hockey," she said.

Not so long ago Nilson had her team in the state final playing in its home stadium. Those legendary days seem like fairy tales now.

"Four of my girls easily should have been playing JV," she said, an indictment of the downsized situation, not of her athletes. "They needed the time to develop and they didn't have the time, so we had to put them in a varsity game. I had three kids out there who never played hockey before."

And still, these Canaries qualified for league and district playoffs. The reward?

In the District 11 first-round game, played on grass in the rain at Pocono Mountain West, Allen lost 3-0 against PM East. One of its stalwarts, Morrell, took a ball off the face. She needed 35 stitches.

As the playoffs progress, the top-tier teams will receive most of the attention. Don't forget about the stitchwork other coaches on teams with lesser records have turned in as well. Their quilts might not look so shiny or fancy, but they'll impress nonetheless.